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Writer's pictureHowie Klein

The DCCC May Be Blowing It... But Many Swing District Democrats Look Like They May Well Pull Through



With Republican billionaires flooding the races with tens of millions of dollars in a late push to win Congress, McCarthy just got enough money to open up expensive last minute fronts against mostly pie-in-the-sky targets Katie Porter ($1.9 million) and Mike Levin in Southern California, while shoring up David Schweikert and Eli Craine in Arizona, going after Andrea Salinas in Oregon, Jahana Hayes in Connecticut, Cindy Axne in Iowa, Angie Craig in Minnesota, Emilia Sykes in Ohio, Abigail Spanberger (VA), Seth Magaziner (RI), Kim Schrier (WA), Vicente Gonzalez (TX) and 3 Pennsylvania seats by targeting Matt Cartwright, Susan Wild and Chris DeLuzio. Yesterday, Michael Bloomberg gave Pelosi’s SuperPAC $10 million to try to hold off the Republicans. Her PAC, though, has a history of wasteful spending and spending on the wrong races. Pelosi and the DCCC, for example, should be investing money in Michelle Vallejo’s south Texas neck and neck race instead of wasting it on Sean Patrick Maloney who has already spent $4,620,358, compared to the $641,648 his opponent, Mike Lawler has spent.


More people need to see the new Michelle Vallejo ad. People in NY-17 have seen too much of Maloney already.

Now that the new PVIs have been released by Cook, I thought it would be valuable to look at the tightest House races in the country based on which races 538 forecasts as being within 5 points and (including PVI and PVI changes). Ironically, the first tight race, for Alaska’s at large House seat, has nothing to do with PVI. It looks like Mary Peltola will beat Sarah Palin in the R+8 district, mostly because everyone likes her and other than the MAGAts, no one like Palin.


  • AZ-02 (Tom O’Halleran)- R+1—> R+6 (Crane up 2.6)

  • CA- 13 (open)- even—> D+4 (Gray up 3.6)

  • CA-22 (David Valadao)- D+4—> D+5 (Valadao up 1.2)

  • CA-27 (Mike Garcia)- D+3—> D+4 (Garcia up 2.0)

  • CT-05 (Jahana Hayes)- D+3—> D+3 (Hayes up 4.0)

  • IL-17 (open)- R+3—> D+2 (Sorensen up 2.4)

  • IA-03 (Cindy Axne)- R+2—> R+3 (Nunn up 1.6)

  • KS-03 (Sharice Davids)- D+2—> R+1 (Davids up 0.9)

  • ME-02 (Jared Golden)- R+6—> R+6 (Golden up 2.9)

  • MI-03 (open)- R+4—> D+1 (Scholten up 1.3)

  • MI-07 (Elissa Slotkin)- R+3—> R+2 (Slotkin up 4.2)

  • MN-02 (Angie Craig)- even—> D+1 (Craig up 4.2)

  • NV-03 (Susie Lee)- R+2—> D+1 (Lee up 3.2)

  • NH-01 (Chris Pappas)- even—> even (Pappas up 4.8)

  • NJ-07 (Tom Malinowski)- D+2—> R+1 (Kean up 3.6)

  • NM-02 (Yvette Herrell)- R+8—> D+1 (Herrell up 3.0)

  • NY-03 (open)- D+3—> D+2 (Zimmerman up 4.6)

  • NY-17 (Sean Patrick Maloney)- D+8—> D+3 (Maloney up 3.2)

  • NY-18 (Pat Ryan)- even—> D+1 (Ryan up 4.0)

  • NY-19 (open)- R+2—> even (Riley up 1.2)

  • NC-13 (open)- R+2 (Hines up 4.2)

  • OH-01 (Steve Chabot)- R+4—> D+2 (Chabot up 5.0)

  • OH-09 (Marcy Kaptur)- D+8—> R+3 (Kaptur up 5.0)

  • OR-05 (open)- D+2—> D+2 (Chavez-DeRemer up 0.4)

  • OR-06 (new seat)- D+4 (Salinas up 3.7)

  • PA-07 (Susan Wild)- even—> R+2 (Scheller up 0.2)

  • PA-08 (Matt Cartwright)- R+5—> R+4 (Cartwright up 1.4)


  • PA-17 (open)- R+1—> even (Deluzio up 1.4)

  • RI-02 (open)- D+4—> D+4 (Magaziner up 1.3)

  • TX-15 (open)- D+1—> R+1 (Vallejo up 0.8)

  • TX-34 (new seat)- D+2—> D+9 (Gonzalez up 0.4)

  • VA-02 (Elaine Luria)- R+1—> R+2 (Luria up 0.4)

  • VA-07 (Abigail Spanberger)- R+2—> D+1 (Spanberger up 3.6)

  • WA-08 (Kim Schrier)- D+1—> D+1 (Schrier up 5.0)

The overall news has been depressing but when you look at the swing seats, most of the Democratic candidates are holding their own, many of the glaring exceptions being sacks of walking garbage with "D"s next to their name like Rudy Salas and Christy Smith who are losing in solid blue districts because... who wants to vote for a sack of garbage? By the way, Biden's approval among swing voters isn't dragging anyone down.


If you’re a progressive and you’re down to your last few bucks in the contribution jar… I’d recommend an effective strategy if you want to save the House majority and do it without backing corrupt conservatives like Manchin, Sinema and Gotteheimer: Jamie McLeod-Skinner (OR), Matt Cartwright (PA), Michelle Vallejo (TX), Chris Deluzio (PA).

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